Global Education Week

The Global Education Week (GEW) is a Europe-wide awareness-raising event, which takes place annually in formal and non-formal educational settings across the continent. It has a different theme every year: the first GEW, launched by the North-South Centre in 1999, focused on how to overcome poverty and social exclusion. Since then, and on the basis of very positive feed-back from the 1999 edition, the NSC has invited all Member States of the Council of Europe to participate in the GEW every year, through the active collaboration of the GEW Network.

The GEW’s aim is to encourage educators and learners to explore educational activities for global citizenship. The GEW addresses issues related to diversity and inequality at the local and global levels, and tries to foster:

Awareness of the wider world and of our own role as world citizens.

Attitudes of respect for diversity and intercultural communication skills.

Responsibility for our own actions.

The ability to take action to make the world a more equitable and sustainable place.

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Global

Education

Week

2016

The theme for the 2016 Global Education Week edition (12-20 November) is “Acting Together for a World of Peace”. The choice of this topic resulted from a discussion between GEW Network co-ordinators, choosing Peace as a priority issue considering the international context. This theme is also in line with the NSC’s mandate with regard to raising awareness on North-South and global interdependence issues. It is linked to the nature of GEW and its relation to the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Global Education Week Network

The Global Education Week Network (GEW Network) helps coordinate the events of the GEW. The network encompasses key national level stakeholders, who, throughout Europe, want to share Global Education strategies and practices. The GEW Network met for the first time in Lisbon, in 2000. It liaises and interacts with the NSC GE Programme all-year round for the promotion of GE.